Poof

Breath.I suppose there was a gathering, a party of sorts.When I was one, my identity was my mother.When she laughed so did I, and when she cried…I enjoyed the spoonfuls of mush she fed me, the tiny jars of turkey or chicken sausages.When I was older, maybe I was five or six, I disappeared for a moment.I was sitting on the floor of the kitchen and then suddenly…“Mother,” I said, “for a minute, I wasn’t here.”“What do you mean?” she asked.“All there was was the tree and the sunlight and the house, but I was gone.I wasn’t here.”“That can’t be,” she said.[But it was so.For one minute, I didn’t exist.]